Kate Christensen has gorgeous hair, but was she complicit in this super juicy “scandal”?

Did you think that Republicans were all about limiting access for voters and  just elections? We’re sure you did, you ultra-liberal, ’68-rioting, Obama-loving, Commie-sympathizing Columbians. CUCR, Columbia University Campus Republicans, is out to prove you wrong, though, as demonstrated by last night’s elections. Bwog has eyes everywhere and one person reports on last night’s meeting:

Update (1:30 pm): See below for Eyvana’s personal statement sent to Bwog, noting that the below is sexist and racist. The CUCR board has stated they will release a joint statement later in the day.

Update (9:25 pm): Another CUCR member claims that at points the outgoing president counted votes by herself, that she interrupted the debate with her own attacks, and that the Executive Director debate was “utter chaos” as debates were cut halfway through due to time constraints.

The CUCR election was run in thoroughly suspect circumstances, to put it mildly.

The room was quite packed—at least sixty people were there. Several members noted that weekly attendance was, at best, half of that. Many said that they had never seen “half the people at the meetings.” One conservative estimate held that perhaps 20% had never been seen at any sort of event during the semester, another 20% had never attended a meeting, and an additional 20% certainly hadn’t attended any that semester, if that year. “A lot of new faces, and a lot of very old faces,” one member said. Again and again, the refrain was “I have never seen these people before.”

A bit of backstory: It had been announced, as per the statements of several board members (see the full list), that voting would be restricted to those who have attended two or more meetings this year—”Parties and co-sponsored events with other groups do not count” read an email on Monday sent by the Director of Communications, and a similarly-worded email was sent out on April 22. The constitution—see Section V, Article I—entitles anyone who has attended two “events” (including parties, which is a very liberal interpretation of that clause), to vote. The president (and who would become the president-elect) pointed out in last night’s meeting that the emails violated the constitution. Some members questioned why she had allowed the emails to go out without saying anything at the time, because, per the constitution, she is “Responsible for CUCR’s adherence to Constitution and Operations Manual.” They imply that she allowed her favored candidates to bring in voters, while others who were not aware that the constitution contradicted the emails could not do so.

Andy Truelove, CC ’17 and who was elected Executive Director, brought in anywhere between six to a dozen people to vote, many of whom had never been seen at anything Republican. One such person, according to two independent witnesses, had to be “reminded,” in front of the President, of which events they had “attended.” Truelove had previously known to be in the camp of Thomas Flynn—CC’15 and the present Financial Director—and had only switched to the winner’s side (Eyvana Bengochea, CC’16) less than an hour before the meeting, taking the sizable bloc with him.

There’s a new president in town and her name is Eyvana Bengochea

In addition, during the speeches, Flynn in particular was the subject of particular attack through the questions of the audience. One attacked his “ethos,” questioning his morals, as he is known to hold quite moderate views on social issues. Another attacked his performance in a debate back in November on the mayoral election. Yet another criticized him for having not attended meetings earlier in the semester; he explained that he had had a severe family crisis and had been asked by his family to look after a close relative, which had been explained before, according to members.

Several members independently said they saw that these questions were planned in advance by the eventual winners, and they were the only questions aired.

This was not the first time eggs had been thrown. One recurring allegation, stated in board meetings, as per the statements of board members, were vague accusations of “vote buying” going on. One person, suspected of having his vote bought by Flynn, said that “he would not have to have his vote bought—he was already committed.” As per the statements of a board member, this claim had been brought up before the board, and had been proven false.

All in all, it is quite clear the current president, Kate Christensen, was complicit in this. It’s been known that she has favored Eyvana for several weeks, according to several members, and the many people who were of dubious qualification to vote were cleared by Christensen without complaint. As mentioned before, the emails with the “unconstitutional” voting eligibility were sent out without being corrected, though she was quick to note that at the start of the meeting, bringing up the rules on her phone. The people she selected to ask those loaded and pointed questions were those known to be favorable to the winners, they also said. Following the presidential election, there was the Executive Director election, which was won by Truelove.

After this, 60% of the people, according to some estimates, left the room. “The room was completely” empty following the first two votes, noted another person. Several were of the opinion that had the remaining crowd—familiar faces at meetings—voted, the aggrieved presidential candidate, Flynn, would have won.

This was given credence by the results, where several of the remaining positions were won by people known to have ties to Flynn—five, by one member’s count. But this still was not devoid of attacks. One candidate—Anna Hewitt, CC ’15 and running for the Financial Director position—said that she would not have to resort to “getting Daddy’s money,” a blatant re-hashing of the “bribery” claims made before the election.

Our questions: Is this just to be expected of campus organizations? Does this even matter? Are political groups wont to take themselves and their elections so seriously that they’ll bend a few rules here and there? CU Dems, though larger than CUCR, runs its elections through a Council of Elders and sends out a list of eligible voters before the meeting. Maybe a bit of election reform couldn’t hurt, CUCR.

And Christensen’s assessment? By a message sent to a person outside of the club, sent to us by a member, “the elections went very well.”

The complete new board:

• President: Eyvana Bengochea
• Executive Director: Andy Truelove
• Director of Finance: Kyle Dontoh
• Director of Communications: Max Schwartz
• Director of Operations: Jamie Boothe
• Director of Public Relations: Kyle Lewin
• Director of Intergroup Affairs: Peter Giraudo
• Social Director: Ellie Dominguez
• Creative Director: Anna Hewitt
• Director of Archival Matters and Letters: Mitch Morton

In response, Eyvana Bengochea’s statment:

This week, the national basketball association made a resounding statement encapsulating what contemporary America is all about. The NBA punished Donald Sterling, owner of the clippers, for life after Sterling uttered a series of racially insensitive statements. I am appalled to find such bigotry, racism, and sexism infiltrating both the organization that I care deeply about, CUCR, and the Columbia Community.

Today unable to accept the fact that a Hispanic woman was elected president, a group of unknown students have veiled themselves behind a mask of anonymity, to launch attacks at myself and other female members of the Columbia Community. In a truly deplorable move, one college, Kate Christiansen [sic] was even referred to with highly sexualized adjectives, including the implicit statement that because she was a woman, with quote “gorgeous hair” she “swooned” the men into helping a master conspiracy unfold.

This is slanderous and defamation, not just to me, but to women everywhere who have fought too much in the last century to see this level of hatred at such a welcoming school like Columbia.

The hate-filled and cowardly article only has one true statement in it: “that there’s a new president in town, and her name is Eyvana Bengochea”. She is the daughter of two Cuban immigrants, a cheerleader and vice president of the Columbia College Student Ambassadors. The Rest of the article is filled with faulty logic, such as equating high voter turnout with corruption.  Under their viewpoint President Obama’s last two elections must have been shammed and a fraud as well, because African American voters arrived in higher voter turnout then ever in American History.

Even worse, they ignored to mention that an official Columbia faculty sponsor oversaw the election, as did the student governing board, both of which ensure that all electoral regulations are followed.

The rest of the piece goes on to make slanderous claims, none of which have any substantive evidence and are further undermined by the refusal of a single person to claim them as their own. That is why I invite those who are disgruntled and harbor sexist or racist intentions to meet with me face to face in a public setting and bring forth their grievances with the election so it can be arbitrated in an open, transparent and honest manner. I have nothing to hide. I have the truth on my side.